Pretham 2

Pretham was
a film that sort of utilized the relatively unfamiliar mentalist concept into a
horror story and gave us a fun film. When it comes to Pretham 2, there isn’t much
of a change in the structure of the movie. But the witty dialogue bits were
kind of enough to hold our interest in the movie to make it an average one time
watch movie.

So John Don
Bosco is now in Mangalssery Mana (Varikkassery Mana) for a treatment purpose.
That house is famous for being the backdrop of many super hit Malayalam films.
But the house is a haunted one. A group of people who only know each other through
social media decides to come to this place to make a short film. How that
meeting and their plans to make the short film goes with the presence of the
supernatural forces present in the house is what Pretham 2 showing us.

As I said, the structure is pretty much a repetition of the first movie. We have a gang of friends who wants to have fun coming to a haunted place. They are mocking John initially saying mentalism is fraud. Then John manages to prove them wrong and become their only help. Then there is a showdown to find one culprit whose deeds caused pain for the ghost. What Ranjith Sankar has done here is a clever replacement of character backdrops. I don’t want to get into the shallow representation of the young generation in the movie as it isn’t the main agenda here. A social cause is a must for Ranjith Sankar movies and this time it is online fraud that gets the spotlight. Much like Pretham, the saving factor of Pretham 2 is the kind of humor we get to hear through certain counter dialogues. But because of the first part, we can easily predict some of the things and Ranjith Sanker isn’t doing much to eliminate that lack of surprise.

Jayasurya reprises his role of John Don Bosco with the same amount of minimalism and intensity. Among the gang members, Amith Chakkalakkal as Tapas was the most common and grounded one. Siddhartha Siva was annoying in the beginning and then gradually got the timing. At times the Mohanlal obsession of the character was way too gimmicky. TV sensation Dain Davis gets a character that is an extension of his on screen image. Durga Krishna was nice as Anu. And the one who was surprisingly not bad was Saniya Iyyappan, the Chinnu of Queen. Jayaraj Warrier is there as an eccentric “all in all”. Manikandan Pattambi, Sreejith Ravi, Muthumani, Raghavan etc. are the other prominent faces who appeared in small roles.

I must say
that it is a bit disheartening to see someone like Ranjith Sankar playing it
way too safe. Both sequels he created in the recent past were mostly had a feel
of capitalizing on the success of the first films rather than a creative need
for a second film. Pretham 2 may be an easy entertainer, but it is not a movie
that one would expect from a man who dared to do Passenger as his first movie.
The script isn’t really serious or sometimes is way too peripheral about some
of the plot elements in the movie. And because of the predecessor, excitement
factor is very less here. The cinematography from Vishnu Narayanan manages to
add spookiness to the content along with the sound design. The background score
was severely excessive.

Pretham 2
is passable fun with nothing much to cheer or talk about. Some of you may have
the same opinion about the first movie; those people can definitely skip this
one as nothing new is on offer here.

Rating:
2.5/5

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Final Thoughts

When it comes to Pretham 2, there isn’t much of a change in the structure of the movie. But the witty dialogue bits were kind of enough to hold our interest in the movie to make it an average movie.

Overall ScoreWhen it comes to Pretham 2, there isn’t much of a change in the structure of the movie. But the witty dialogue bits were kind of enough to hold our interest in the movie to make it an average movie.2.5 /5